A Minnesota Senate panel on Wednesday
voted down a resolution which would repeal a proposed constitutional
amendment to ban gay marriage in the state, The
Pioneer Press reported.
The amendment, approved last year by
the Republican-controlled Legislature and slated to be voted on
during the November general election, would define marriage in the
state as a heterosexual union.
During a Local Government and Elections
Committee hearing debating an unrelated photo ID ballot question,
Democratic Senator Mary Jo McGuire offered an amendment to the bill
which would remove the gay marriage question from the 2012 ballot.
The amendment failed with an 8-6
party-line vote.
In remarks after the hearing, McGuire
said she offered the amendment to give Republican members a chance
“to see the error of their ways, to correct their mistake of
putting it on the ballot. I think they might have regretted they had
done this when they realized what they had actually done.”
A similar measure is sponsored in the
House by openly gay Representative Karen Clark.